With so much that has been shouted and so little that’s been said during this “teachable moment,” I am glad that the photo-op and the platitudes that accompanied the Gates-Crowley affair has been now put to rest over a few brewskis. We have not learned anything new about racial profiling, or had an honest conversation about racial prejudice, or matured as a nation in any way since the story broke.
But most of all we learned that the best way to not talk about race is to trivialize the issue by reducing it to the isolated prejudices of others not as a living and mutating phenomenon that may influence our split second impressions of one another.
We did not learn, however, that even if we are racist ourselves its still possible that racial prejudice may still be a factor in how we treat one another. We also did not learn about what leads to racial profiling. We did not learn why many people of color and whites sees these kind of controversies so differently.
To be sure, this incident could not have come at a worse time for the president and I certainly recognize that. He really does not have time or the interest in playing racial healer, especially when he is trying to convince the American public and even members of his own party, even with commanding majorities in both chambers, of the merits of his health care plan.
By the same token, I cannot help but lament the fact that this was the “teachable moment” that wasn’t.
In a curious op-ed that he penned for the New York Times on the controversy surrounding the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Brown University Professor Glenn Loury says the whole affair was “the rough equivalent of a black man being thrown out of a restaurant after having berated an indifferent maître d’ for showing him to a table by the kitchen door, all the while declaring what everybody is supposed to know: this is what happens to a black man in America.”
Perhaps this would be true if the Sgt. Crowley, the officer who arrested Gates, performed his duties in according to the letter of the law. But the fact of the matter is that even if Gates got ‘uppity’ and became belligerent, there’s still precious little to suggest that the grey haired professor should have been cuffed for disorderly conduct in his own home or in close proximity to it. This is especially true, if Gates produced an ID with his home address on it, which he in fact did do. Also, I noted in an earlier post, what Gates was accused of doing does not rise to of say violent or threatening drunkness that may lead to creating a nuisance or danger to the public as stated under Massachusetts law.
Secondly, Loury seemed compelled to defend racial profiling by law enforcement on the grounds that “police are at the front line in our society’s response to them. We should be slow to judge them, and slower still to embrace crude stereotypes about their motives — just as they should be slow to conclude that someone is a likely criminal suspect because he happens to be black and male.”
Sigh. Of course, we would not want to unnecessarily malign police men and women and other first responders. Of course, they have very tough jobs. But that does not excuse the pervasiveness and uselessness of racial profiling. Several studies have shown that its counter-productive, whether the context is the war on drugs or the war on terror, which is why much of the law enforcement community has endorsed the End Racial Profiling Act.
ERPA would ban the practice of racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies and provide federal funding to state and local police departments if they adopt policies to prohibit the practice. It has yet to be introduced this Congress, but criminal justice reform advocates have been clamoring for its passage for years.
Ending racial profiling it and of itself could be an important first step in diminishing the mutual suspicion that exists among people of color and law enforcement and maybe lead to a more cooperation.
Plus, to suggest that the stereotypes of policemen by people of color, who are more likely to be stopped, frisked, and victims of use of force by law enforcement, is somehow as equally powerful as the stereotypes that might exist in the minds of a minority of police officers who carry out such acts is just wrong. This is not to disparage police officers who play by the rules and put their lives on the line everyday, but it is to acknowledge that there is an asymetrical power relationship here.
Thirdly, while Loury does have a point in criticizing candidate Obama for choosing to avoid commenting on last year’s the verdict in the Shawn Bell case and ducking many questions having to do with racial justice generally since he has become president, its not entirely true that the administration is indifferent to plight of poor black folk.
(Last year three New York City police officers fired 51 shots on the night right before Sean Bell, a 23-year old black man, was to be wed when he hit an unmarked police car twice just after exiting a strip club. Two of Bell’s friends in the car were also injured. All three officers were acquitted. “The judge has made his ruling, and we’re a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down,” said then-Senator Obama.)
To its credit, the Obama administration has supported an equalizing federal sentencing for cocaine and crack possession. Under current law, five grams of crack carries a mandatory minimum of five years in prison. To get the same penalty of cocaine one needs to possess 500 grams of cocaine. This creates a 100 to 1 disparity for what is pharmacologically the same drug. The sentencing disparity is widely credited with having a disproportionate affect on the incarceration rates of African Americans.
Of course, the president has not made anything publicly about it, but he has Attorney General Eric Holder recently said, “This Administration firmly believes that the disparity in crack and powder cocaine sentences is unwarranted, creates a perception of unfairness, and must be eliminated. This change should be addressed in Congress.”
A bipartisian bill – the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act (H.R. 3245) – is now making its way through the House of Representatives and a companion bill be introduced in the Senate soon too.
Also, the announcement of the Department of Education’s Race to the Top program, which is designed to help poor performing schools, will disproportionately help African Americans and Latino students.
Neither the effort to equalize the federal sentencing on powder and crack nor the education initiative were mentioned in Loury’s column.
I really can’t begrudge him–his priority is health-care. Me, on the other hand, I’m pretty exhausted. What follows is the raw. Not much logic. Just some thoughts on how it feels.
I feel pretty stupid for going hard on this, and stupider for defending what Obama won’t really defend himself. I should have left it at one post. Evidently Obama, Crowley and Gates are talking about getting a beer together. I hope they have a grand old time.
The rest of us are left with a country where, by all appearances, officers are well within their rights to arrest you for sassing them. Which is where we started. I can’t explain why, but this is the sort of thing that makes you reflect on your own precarious citizenship. I mean, the end of all of this scares the hell out of me.
President Barack Obama attempted to quell criticism of his remarks concerning the arrest of Harvard law professor Henry “Skip” Louis Gates by Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Massachusetts police force during a cameo appearance at a White House press briefing on Friday. The president expressed regret that “my choice of words didn’t illuminate, but rather contributed to more media frenzy.” He also said he phoned Sgt. Crowley to apologize for conveying the false impression that he intended to malign him and his department.
At his press conference on Wednesday he said “that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they [sic] were in their own home.”
Seeing how his words of condemnation inadvertently led to much of the inane fodder in the blogosphere, talk radio, and cable television chatter and consequently distracting the public from his broader legislative agenda, he urged us to step “back for a moment,” recognize that “these are two decent people, not extrapolate too much from the facts,” but “be mindful of the fact that because of our history, because of the difficulties of the past, you know, African-Americans are sensitive to these issues.”
He also said he invited Professor Gates and Sgt. Crowley to the White House for a beer as a gesture of good will and hopes of reconciling differences and putting this controversy to rest.
His comments were meant to be conciliatory and to prevent the controversy over his initial set of remarks from competing with his message of the urgency of passing a health care reform bill through a slow moving Congress. On August 7th, the Congress breaks for a month long recess, and the White House is determined to keep the pressure on lawmakers to continue to work on the bill even during the break if need be. I could see how some of his advisers may think wading into racial politics at this juncture would not be helpful.
By the same token, the president attempt to rein back his statements were not helpful in enriching our already impoverished discussion of racial justice. Whether he knew it or not, the president’s remarks on Friday gave us the impression that the gray haired professor who walks with a cane is just a fault for his own arrest in his own home even if he produced an ID showing as the imposing and armed police officer is for cuffing him, since its all one big misunderstanding.
To imply there is some kind of moral equivalency here given the power relationship is wrong. Even if Professor Gates was belligerent is not clear that he was wanted to fight, threaten, initiate violent behavior, or was a danger to public safety or became annoyance, any one of which would have justified the arrest for disorderly conduct under Massachusetts law. In this instance, a mere heated exchange eventuated in a mug shot.
The president could have at least reaffirmed his statement on Wednesday that racial profiling remains a national problem and that something should be done about it. For starters, we could pass the End Racial Profiling Act, which would ban the practice of racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies and provide federal funding to state and local police departments if they adopt policies to prohibit the practice. ERPA has yet to be introduced this Congress, but criminal justice reform advocates have been clamoring for its passage for years.
Instead, we are told that tempers flared unnecessarily on both sides and that we should all calm down and have a brewski. I doubt that the next person of color who gets pulled over in the Boston area will derive much solace from that recommendation.
President Obama called this a “teachable moment” for all us but that presumes that someone has to do the teaching or at least lead the discussion. Many people, perhaps unjustifiably, expected our first black president to do just that, but it seems he really does not appetite for it and quite frankly is rather busy with salvaging two failed wars he inherited from his predecessor in addition to trying to capture terrorists, reforming our financial regulatory system, stimulate job creation, overhauling our education system and, of course, passing a health care reform bill.
Political observers have wondered whether or not President Obama’s ascendancy not only means that we live in a post-racist America, but also if we need an activist class of black leaders anymore. Some have provocatively asked if Obama signifies the “End of Black Politics?” But the President Obama needs a counterweight on these issues, someone to contrast his own views with on racial justice issues and who can forcefully communicate the concerns of black America to everyone else. The president still has to worry about managing the perception that he’s inclined to favor some groups over others.
Of course, scores of black intellectuals and civic leaders have commented on the Gates affair, but no one with the kind of stature necessary to become President Obama’s gadfly on racial issues writ large in the same way President Lydon B. Johnson had to contend with Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in the 60′s.
Even the most gifted and talented among us need to be pushed in the right direction to realize their potential.
At an otherwise snooze fest of a presser devoid of….well news, President Barack Obama offered a few candid remarks about racial profiling that may wind up overshadowing anything having to do with the debate over a public option or how to contain the rising cost of health care premiums. In responding to a question from Lyn Sweet of the Chicago Tribune about what the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis “Skip” Gates says about race relations in American society, the president was surprisingly pointed in his criticism of the Cambridge police.
The former civil rights lawyer said he thought “the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home” and that “we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”
President Obama also sought to disabuse people of the notion that his win in November 2008 or even that of Governor Deval Patrick in Massachuettes in 2006 means we now live in a so-called “post-racial” society where racism is dead when he asserted that there is “indisputable evidence that blacks and Hispanics were being stopped disproportionately. And that is a sign, an example of how, you know, race remains a factor in the society.”
He also said, “I am standing here as testimony to the progress that’s been made. And yet the fact of the matter is, is that, you know, this still haunts us.”
For those of you not following the whole Professor Henry “Skip” Gates being racially profiled and then arrested at his own home for “disorderly conduct” here is a summary from today’s WaPo:
After returning from a week in China researching the genealogy of cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Gates found himself locked out of his house, and he and his driver began pushing against the front door. The sight of two black men forcing open a door prompted an emergency call to police.
The white officer who arrived found Gates in the house (the driver was gone) and asked him to step outside. Gates refused, and the officer followed him in. Gates showed him his ID, which included his address, then demanded that the officer identify himself. The officer did not comply, Gates said. He then followed the officer outside, saying repeatedly, “Is this how you treat a black man in America?”
The police report said that Gates was “exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior” and that the officer, Sgt. James Crowley, identified himself. “We stand by whatever the officer said in his report,” said Sgt. James DeFrancesco, a spokesman for the Cambridge Police Department. He would not comment on Gates’s version of his arrest.
The department said that Crowley tried to calm Gates, but that the professor would not cooperate and said, “You don’t know who you’re messing with.”
“These actions on behalf of Gates served no legitimate purpose and caused citizens passing by this location to stop and take notice while appearing surprised and alarmed,” the report said.
Gates said he does not think that anything he did justified the officer’s actions. He walks with a cane and said he did not pose a threat.
“I weigh 150 pounds and I’m 5-7. I’m going to give flak to a big white guy with a gun. I might wolf later, but I won’t wolf then.”
Barack Obama’s election as the nation’s first black president was “huge and important,” Gates said, but “did not translate to structural change. Given the demographics of Cambridge, [the officer] probably voted for Barack. That wasn’t much help to me.”
He added: “I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten.”
Interestingly enough, the governor of Massachusetts Patrick Deval is also black. Neither of which seemed important enough to counter the kind of preconceived notions that often lead to racial profiling even in the liberal Bay State.
Years ago, comedian Dave Chappelle explained why he fears the police in a hypothetical (or maybe real?) account of finding an intruder in his house. Today more than ever it seems especially apropos.
New “Harry and Louise” ads are airing this weekend urging Congress to pass universal heath care, but with a more encouraging, softer and more gentler tone than the versions that ran in 1993. Those series of ads, among other factors, are widely credited with killing the push for comprehensive health care during the Clinton administration in the 1990′s. But some people do not see it that way. “What really turned it into ‘Harry and Louise’ vs. the Bill and Hillary campaign was the response of the Clinton White House. Hillary in particular responded very personally,” Ben Goddard, the writer and director of the old and new ads told ABC News.
I am not so sure that even in retrospect that argument is the least bit plausible, but it does sound as if creators of the original spots are have changed adopted a different message. Here is what ABC News said about it:
“While the popular perception has been for some time that it was an anti-health care reform campaign, it would be more accurate to say it questioned the wisdom of the proposal that the Hillary’s health committee cooked up essentially behind closed doors without input from the industry.” Goddard said that this time around, the President wants to include private insurance policies as part of the solution.
Both “Harry and Louise” actors and their director Goddard — who married the actress playing Louise in both the 1993 and 2009 ads — were on the Hill today along with representatives of insurance companies and key leaders in the health care industry, speaking in support of the Affordable Health Choices Act. That act, passed by the Senate’s HELP committee yesterday, includes a public option.
The ad buy reportedly cost $4 millions a is paid for by Families USA, a health care advocacy group supporting universal coverage, and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade association of pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and two large insurance companies.
In a moment of unexpected yet welcome levity during the Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings for to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, Senator Jeff Sessions made an unprompted comment about correcting one of Congress biggest blunders: enacting a law creating a 100 to 1 disparity in cocaine and crack sentencing.
In an exchange with a noted civil rights advocate he said, ” Senator Leahy and I are talking during these hearings. We’re going to do that crack cocaine thing that you and I have talked about before.” The comment immediately drew laughs and prompted Sessions to explain, “We’re going to reduce the burden of penalties in some of the crack cocaine cases and make them fair.”
All jokes aside this is undoubtedly a good sign. Sen. Sessions was addressing Wade Henderson a noted civil rights advocate, who has been urging Congress to reform the crack cocaine sentencing including mandatory minimums for years. Under federal law, a dealer with 5 grams of crack cocaine on him, which is the size of two sugar packets can get a five year mandatory minimum sentence. By contrast, a cocaine dealer would have to have 500 grams of cocaine, which is more a little more than a pound, to trigger a five year mandatory minimum. That creates a 100 to 1 disparity in the sentencing for crack and cocaine.
“Equalization of the sentencing ratio for crack and powder cocaine offenses from 100 to 1 to a ratio of 1 to 1 at the current powder cocaine level is the only fair solution,” Henderson told the Senate subcommittee on Crime and Drugs in April of this year. “The time has come to rationalize drug sentencing laws and practices. The civil rights impact of these criminal justice reforms can no longer be ignored.”
Those sentiments were later echoed by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder last month. “This Administration firmly believes that the disparity in crack and powder cocaine sentences is unwarranted, creates a perception of unfairness, and must be eliminated. This change should be addressed in Congress,” Holder said.
According to the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice reform group, the median drug quantity for a crack cocaine street level seller charged in federal court (comprising two-thirds of federal crack defendants) in 2000 was 52 grams, enough to trigger a 10-year mandatory sentence. For powder cocaine, the median quantity for a street level dealer was 340 grams, not enough even to trigger the 5-year sentence, and often a mere slap on the wrist for first time offenders.
But crack and powder cocaine are pharmacological identical substances. In fact, crack is just a hardened form of powder cocaine often mixed with baking power. But with cocaine users being disproportionately white compared to crack users who are disproportionately black the law with its penalty structures has a huge unfair impact on who goes to prison and who doesn’t and for how long.
Why did Congress do this? And continue to tolerate it? Interestingly enough, it was the reaction to the story of Len Bias‘ death that led to the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which is the law that contains all the stiff penalties. Bias’ death from a cocaine overdose after experimenting it for the first time the night he was drafted by the Boston Celtics shocked Congress into action and really prompted the war on drugs as we know it.
In fact, the law’s mandatory penalties for crack cocaine offenses were the harshest ever adopted for low level drug offenses and established the drastically different penalty structures for crack and powder cocaine. Lawmakers, however, had a poor understanding of the differences between the drug substances and figured that the disparity would lead to jailing actual drug king pins.
Of course, thanks to the Wire and countless other studies, we now know that it the law affects more low level drug dealers, who are easily replaceable as they come in and out of jail, than it does so called king pins, who often rarely see extensive jail time. This has led to an explosion of incarceration rates with notable racial disparities. Between 1994 and 2003, the average time served by African Americans for drug offenses increased by 62 percent, compared to an increase of 17 percent for white drug offenders, says the Sentencing Project.
An independent federal body called the Sentencing Commission, has called for reforming the sentencing structure for more than a decade now, and the Obama administration supports doing so, but its hard to underestimate the fear of being branded as soft on crime for Republican and Democratic elected officials alike, especially for redstate Dems.
That said, the tide does seem to be turning because with increasing support for a 1 to 1 bill in both the House and Senate. And even Sen. Jeff Sessions, a former federal prosecutor in Alabama with less than enlightened views on racial equality, supported a 20 to 1 bill back in 2007.
To be sure, that’s not exactly where the ratio should be, but its certainly an improvement. This is significant because whatever reform bill comes out the Senate will have to go through the Senate committee where Sessions is currently the top Republican. So, when the Alabama Senator said he wants to work with Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen Patrick Leahy about a “doing that crack cocaine thing” its definitely a good sign.
I don’t know how Michael Jackson and his brothers managed to dance and sing at the same time without sounding exhausted half way through the song. I get tired just mouthing the words in the mirror after a shower.
At any rate, MJ’s totally set the standard for how the robot should be performed.
On day 2 of the Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination, Senator Lindsey Graham asked a fairly peculiar question. “What’s the best way for society to change, generally speaking? What’s the most legitimate way for a society to change?” At first, Judge Sotomayor was stumped by that question because it seemed academic at best.
He then asks “Do you think judges — do you think judges have changed society by some of the landmark decisions in the last 40 years?” Now it is plainly true that the high court’s decisions on everything from campaign finance reform to the death penalty to gay rights to bilingual education to voting rights to employment discrimination and much more has undoubtedly changed society. But Judge Sotomayor wisely demured from responding until he revealed his real reason for engaging in that line of questioning.
And in a very patronizing Senator Graham noted “… a lot of us feel that the best way to change society is to go to the ballot box, elect someone, and if they are not doing it right, get rid of them through the electoral process. And a lot of us are concerned from the left and the right that unelected judges are very quick to change society in a way that’s disturbing. Can you understand how people may feel that way?”
Of course, this seems sensible on its face, but it Sen. Graham is ignoring how the courts as an institution differ from legislative bodies. Part of the reason judges to federal courts are unelected and have lifetime tenure is to make sure that political pressures do not override larger concerns about constitutional rights, including making unpopular rulings if necessary, to protect the rights of women and people of color.
Of course, the ballot box is important and is obviously a tranformative vehicle for change in its own right, but the courts can provide a check against the other two branches of government when both are two preocuppied with the popular will. Democracy is more than simple majority rule. It also has to consider the rights of minorities and the individual.
But Sen. Graham also noted:
I think, for a long time, a lot of talented women were asked, can you type? And were trying to get beyond that and improve as a nation. So when it comes to the idea that we should consciously try to include more people in the legal process and the judicial process, from different backgrounds, count me in.
But your speeches don’t really say that to me.
They — along the lines of what Senator Kyl was saying — they kind of represent the idea, there’s a day coming when there’ll be more of us — women and minorities — and we’re going to change the law.
And what I hope we’ll take away from this hearing is there need to be more women and minorities in the law to make a better America. And the law needs to be there for all of us, if and when we need it.
And the one thing that I’ve tried to impress upon you through jokes and being serious, is the consequences of these words in the world in which we live in. You know, we’re talking about putting you on the Supreme Court and judging your fellow citizens.
And one of the things that I need to be assured of is that you understand the world as it pretty much really is. And we’ve got a long way to go in this country…
This statement is the clearest expression of the anxiety white males feel about living in a society with more Judge Sonia Sotomayors and fewer Joe the Plumbers.
Supreme Court confirmation hearings have been advertised as a study in contrasts between what our nation’s two parties envision the role of the courts in our society and highlight competing ideas on grand Constitutional questions. Of course, in more recent decades they have fertile ground to perpetuate our ongoing culture wars in some form or another. Unlike years past, Judge Sonia Sotomayor nomination has not inspired fury of either side in the abortion debate, which I don’t lament at all, with greater questions of racial and gender gaining more attention.
But today’s hearing had its fair share of pettiness and narrow minded questioning.
Recognizing the dishonest acrimonious shout fest that has ensued in the last few weeks, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy cautioned his Republican collegues against yeilding to “outside pressure groups that sought to create a caricature of Judge Sotomayor while belittling her record and achievements, her intelligence.” In his opening statement yesterday, Sen. Leahy suggested that history will not look kindly upon Senators who will try to embarass Judge Sotomayor as that chamber once did during Justice Thurgood Marshall’s confirmation hearings, the first African American on the high court, by asking “questions designed to embarrass him, questions such as are you prejudice against the white people in the South.”
Sen. Leahy cited another low point of when Justice Louis Brandies had to beat back anti-Semitic charges of him being a radical jurist. “I hope that’s a time of our past” said the Senator from Vermont.
Apparently not. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions in particular led the charge in criticizing Judge Sonia Sotomayor by questioning her impartiality even in the face of all the statiscal evidence of her rulings underscoring that she is not some left wing judge that implusively sides with victims in discrimination cases or with plantiffs suing the employers or promoting some other lefty cause. Predictably, during is questioning period he spent an inordinate amount of time on the wise Latina remark as a reliable indication that she will somehow be biased against those who are not people of color or women, i.e., white men.
Sen. Sessions understood Judge Sotomayor’s admission that like any judge her life experiences shape her judicial thinking and that impariality is an aspirational goal rarely if ever achieved, as reason to suspect that she has a hidden agenda. “So how can you reconcile your speeches which repeatedly assert that impartiality is a near aspiration which may not be possible in all or even most cases with your oath that you’ve taken twice which requires impartiality?” asked Sen. Sessions. One has to wonder who are these genuinely imparitial people that Sessions seems to believe exist.
For her part Judge Sotomayor said, “That’s why we have appellate judges that are more than one judge because each of us, from our life experiences, will more easily see different perspectives argued by parties.” As a lay person, this strikes me as a fairly obvious observation.
At one point, the Senator from Alabama inexplicably thought it was necessary to state that a fellow Puerto Rican Judge Jose Cabranes disagreed with Judge Sotomayor’s finding in the Ricci decision. The Ricci case involved a group of white firefighters and one Hispanic who sued for racial discrimination when the city of New Haven, CT when it decided to throw out a promotional examine after not enough African Americans scored high enough to be considered for a promotion. Judge Sotomayor sided with New Haven in finding that the test had a disparate impact on African Americans under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Her decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court a few weeks ago by a vote of 5-4.
“Had you voted with Judge Cabranes, himself of Puerto Rican ancestry, had you voted with him, you could’ve changed that case,” Sessions said. With that remark, Senator Sessions ironically he appeared to be promoting the same kind of group loyalty that he thought that Judge Sotomayor could not avoid.
Interestingly enough, Sen. Sessions used Judge Sotomayor’s association with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund to try to portray her as an activist judge even though Judge Cabranes, a Republican appointee, is a founder of the famed civil rights group.
In sum, we learned more about the prejudices of a particular Republican Senator than we did of the nominee.
Senator Jeff Sessions’ statement at today’s hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court:
Justice Sotomayor has said she accepts that her opinions, sympathies and prejudices will affect her rulings. Could it be that her time as a leader in the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a fine organization, provides a clue to her decision against the firefighters?
While the nominee was chair of that fund’s litigation committee, the organization aggressively pursued racial quotas in city hiring and in numerous cases fought to overturn the results of promotion exams. It seems to me that in Ricci, Judge Sotomayor’s empathy for one group of firefighters turned out to be prejudice against another.
That is, of course, the logical flaw in the empathy standard. Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another.
This is an odd argument to make considering how SCOTUSblog found that in race discrimination cases Judge Sotomayor’s record is strikingly similar to those of her other colleagues on the Second Circuit, which include members of both parties and is overwhelmingly white.
Other than Ricci, Judge Sotomayor has decided 96 race-related cases while on the court of appeals.
Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions. Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous. (Many, by the way, were procedural victories rather than judgments that discrimination had occurred.) Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge. In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent’s point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case. So Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1.
Secondly, it seems rather awkward for Senator Jeff Sessions to accuse a person of color of racism considering his own checkered past.
Right wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh instructs the public on how racial prejudice works in the United States. Somehow he stunningly concludes that Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” statement is somehow worse that former Virginia George Allen using the term Macaca to refer to a South Asian volunteer for the now Senator Jim Webb Virgina.
In a recent Associated Press interview, President Obama gave a disappointingly weak answer to a question on affirmative action that I fear the opposition will have no problem exploiting in the future.
Instead of seeing Affirmative Action as part of the solution in expanding equal opportunity he went out of his way to deemphasize its importance by suggesting it should be treated as a mere footnote in the larger debate about how to combat discrimination. I am not surprise at his response, just a little disappointed.
Money quote:
I’ll be honest with you, though, I’ve always believed that affirmative action was less of an issue, or should be less than an issue, than it’s been made out to be in news reports. It’s not it hasn’t been as potent a force for racial progress as advocates would claim, and it hasn’t been as bad on white students seeking admissions or seeking a job as its critics has been.
I think the way to move forward on race is to make sure that every kid from the time they’re born is getting good nutrition and good education, is succeeding in K through 12, and we’re opening opportunities for all young people. Because when everybody’s got a level playing field, everybody’s competing, and we’ve dealt with some of the legacies of discrimination that have resulted in substandard schools or extreme poverty in some communities, then affirmative action ends up being an afterthought and we can really just make sure that everybody’s treated fairly in an environment that, in which race is rarely taken into account.
I can see opponents of affirmative action citing this response to argue “fighting discrimination (regardless of the victim’s color) is fine, social programs that help the disadvantaged (again, regardless of color) are fine, but you don’t need racial preferences to do any of this.”
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